


Maybe better

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Series: Protective Clarke and hurt Murphy [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study-ish, Hurt/Comfort, Post 3x06, Protective Clarke Griffin, mentions of torture, murphy whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 15:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6121792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke finds Murphy after he's been tortured and takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe better

Clarke had found Murphy lying on the floor, nearly bled out, barely clinging to life. His torturers had been long gone - good. They didn't call her Wanheda for nothing. She was angry, angry at Murphy's state, angry at herself for not having had found him sooner, angry because she felt she didn't who she could really trust. She'd taken the unconscious boy in her arms and taken him to Lexa's chamber, to many people's surprise. She stained the Heda's blanket with blood from a Skaikru outcast, and asked for no permssion. But who could care about politics when someone was broken, bleeding, and so very badly wounded?

She looked at him and it hurt her. Maybe not physically, but in so many other ways. They broke him so badly, caused him so much pain. All for what? To ask about a few things he most probably didn't know. But of course, when you say you don't know, it looked as if you're protecting someone, so they kept at it. And boy, had they kept at it. 

Clarke looked at Murphy and saw only blood, bruises and shivers. And it pained her, because like it or not, Murphy was one of her people, someone who had gone to great lengths to try and redeem himself and she had failed him. She had failed him before, when she let him be hanged for something he hadn't done because of her meddling, and she'd failed again and again, letting him be tortured for information he may or may not have at the hands of their supposed allies. An alliance she'd forged - she'd been an indirect agent in his torture, every time. They have tortured Murphy two times that she knew of - and that was two times too much. 

She would talk with Lexa, and the commander would probably listen to her, punish the parties responsible, maybe even think of changing their ways. Maybe consider that torture shouldn't be an option. That there were better ways, that torture was simply not justified. Yeah, maybe it could change some things, be a turning point. But the damage was already done. 

Murphy had been remarkably whole (homicidal tendencies aside) after his first round of torture, but now this sort of extreme pain was becoming almost a norm. And Murphy's body may have become hardened by the continuous tests of the earth, and he could have developed a way to handle pain, but there was no knowing what could have this done to him mentally. 

Murphy had been a pompous ass, once upon a time, but ever since he¡d been hanged, banished and exiled, things have changed, slowly but noticeably, and by the time he left camp with Jaha he'd become an almost nice presence. Redeemable. Probably a better person than she was, probably with less blood on his hands. But she hadn't been punished as badly as him for her sins, much less twice. She hadn't known torture, she hadn't seen all of her people turn on her, blame her for something she hadn't done and left her alone to die. 

She didn't know how she would have handled that, how could she handle being tortured again. Maybe he'd go against her - she didn't know. But she needed to find a way to make up for this, some way to fix the Skaikru's complete abandonment and mistreatment of John Murphy. She'd thought she'd been in the right, once. She thought Murphy deserved what he'd got and so much more - but things had changed, and she'd been able to understand Murphy, more or less. 

Blood must have blood. Murphy had turned on them, but they had turned on him first. And had she really been so naive to think that his hanging and banishment would have no consequences? He'd probably felt as justified killing those two as she'd been in Mount Weather. It was justice. It was the right thing to do. But she'd failed to see it, and she had left one of her won alone and abandoned. 

Murphy had survived, he always survived. Through the worst of imaginable pains, he'd gone on and continued. But now... When would it get to his breaking point? What was the limit of what this resilient boy could withstand? Maybe it was reached already. Maybe he wouldn't wake up again, or he'd become a vegetable. Maybe he would dedicate his life to hurting those that hurt him. Maybe it was already too late, maybe there was nothing she could do. 

She looked at Murphy's unconscious form and sighed. She'd stitched up the worst cuts, bandaged some body parts, put poultice on some injuries. But still, he looked half dead. He'd always been pale, but now he looked sickly, as if the dried blood had seeped into his skin. One of his eyes was swollen shut and she could still hear his whines when he'd been moved from that torture chamber. Sometimes he woke her up in the middle of the night, screaming, trying to defend himself from an aggressor that wasn't there. Sometimes he threw up bile, sometimes his whole body shook and sometimes he softly called for his dad. And Clarke could understand that longing, and embraced him, trying to take up both their dad's space.

She noticed he was getting a fever, due to infection, exhaustion or simple misery she didn't know, so she would put a wet rag in his forehead, carefully, so that it didn't leak, but it relieved some of the excessive heat. She wondered how long it had been since he'd last been treated with care, with affection. No one at the camp had ever considered treating him like a person, much less someone worthy of love. And his bully-ish behaviour may have been a defense, a front to protect himself. Clarke didn't know anything about Murphy's family, but she sensed something tragic. She knew her father had been killed, but nothing else. 

Maybe his mother had died, too. Maybe his mother had never really loved him. Maybe all he had was her, and the delinquents, and they forsaken at the first difficulty. Maybe Murphy had more reasons to be as hateful and bitter as he was than they thought. So she checked his fever, hummed a lullaby, changed his bandages. Awkwardly and first, more comfortably after, caressed his beaten face.  
"I'm sorry, Murphy. I really am."

It became a kind of ritual. Clarke shielded herself from everything else while taking care of Murphy, and at the same time tried to make an old mistake right. Sometimes she slept next to him, heard his labored breathing, wiped his forehead. Murphy had become part of his home in this unknown place, even if watching what her allies had done to him hurt, hurt very badly. 

Torture. It was an almost unspeakable word in the Ark, an absolute taboo. Something that didn't happen because it was simply unthinkable, unacceptable. And yet this boy had to live through it at least twice. The scars could not be seen easily, the torturers hadn't had much time to perfect their techniques, but to an expert eye like Clarke's, they were there. On his arms, stomach, legs, neck. The marks were there, marks of a life of hardship, of hatred, of constant pain. 

Some of those new wounds were infected because she hadn't found him quick enough. It would be a long, painful recovery, filled with ups and downs, and blood and silent tears, even those horrible flashbacks that shook him to the core, but he'd manage to make it. He always did. Only this time, maybe he wouldn't have to make it alone. 

When he opened his eyes after a horrible fever dream, unknown yet familiar blue eyes were looking at him, taking care of him. Telling him he'd be all right, nursing him, showing concern for him and his wounds. It was probably not real, but Murphy didn't care. The voice took care of him, gave him medicine, soothed him during his nightmares, dressed his bleeding wounds, apologized for everything. 

He wished it was real, but it couldn't be. No one with blue eyes cared about him. His mother certainly hadn't. But at least this hallucination was kind. And things that weren't real couldn't betray you, like everyone else had done in his life. Mom, Bellamy, Mbege, Raven, Emori, Jaha. All of them had used him, abandoned him or betrayed him in some way. But this presence (some blonde grounder?) came day after day and cleaned his wounds and calmed his burning aching body. 

Clarke had spent days wishing Murphy would recognise her, recognise someone from the 100 was there for him, to help him. But he just couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe someone would be there for him, so he figured she wasn't really there. She understood, but it didn't make it any less tragic. 

Until one day, when Murphy opened his eyes from sleep and realised who was there. It was Clarke. It had been her all the time. 

He was extremely confused. 

"It's okay, John. I'll protect you now."

He went back to sleep after a while and Clarke watched him sleep. 

Maybe she didn't always have to make grand gestures, prevent wars to help her people. 

Maybe she only needed a kind word, a helpful caring hand to make things better. 

As he slept, she took one of Murphy's hands on her own, their foreheads touching, and for the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful. 

Better.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked! 
> 
> Feedback is love!


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